


Angelitos de Navidad

by Deannie



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Oh my gosh fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, also Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5585452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inez Recillios was not a woman to feel homesick often. But listening to the familiar stories and unfamiliar hymns and looking around the church festooned with very European decorations, Inez missed Christmas in Mexico.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angelitos de Navidad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JoJo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/gifts).



> For Jojo, who wanted Christmas in Four Corners from a woman's point of view.

Inez Recillios was not a woman to feel homesick often. Her life in Four Corners was much better than her life with Don Paulo. It was even better than her life before that, in her village near Guadalajara. She spent her energy looking forward—she always had.

But listening to the familiar stories and unfamiliar hymns and looking around the church festooned with very European decorations, Inez missed Christmas in Mexico. Josiah Sanchez was a good man, and a good preacher, but the service was… not what Inez was used to. They spoke of it briefly after the congregation dispersed.

“I hope we can help you enjoy your Christmas despite our lackings here in Four Corners, Senorita,” he told her gently. He did not chide her, though she felt guilty for finding fault in his services because they were not the Catholic ones of her upbringing. After all, that had not bothered her before the Season of Waiting began.

Perhaps it was because of what the season meant. Belonging. Family. Friendship. She had been here nearly three months now, but sometimes she still felt very much apart.

She walked thoughtfully down the boardwalk after leaving Josiah, not ready to open the saloon quite yet, though she knew a certain gambler would be waiting, along with the rest of the heathens in town. Mrs. Potter was closed on Sundays, every Sunday, but today, she had already started decorating the shop for business tomorrow.

“Inez, good morning,” she greeted her pleasantly, as if they hadn’t seen each other in the church not half an hour before. She was a nice woman who had lost her husband to lawlessness, leaving her to raise her children alone. Her German accent was nearly buried by her decades in America, but the window decorations were very… foreign. Inez’s heart felt a little heavier, despite the woman’s cheery demeanor.

“Good morning,” Inez replied. She looked at the complicated machine Mrs. Potter was putting together in the window, nestled amid pine boughs. It looked almost like one of those clocks with the dancing people like the Don had had on his mantle, but there were no clockworks or face, only a sort of whirly-gig at the top and candles at the bottom. “What is that you have?”

Mrs. Potter was surprised. “You’ve never seen a Christmas pyramid?” she asked, almost scandalized. “Well of course, you wouldn’t, living in Mexico.” She allowed for the deficiency and explained. “When it’s put together, you light the candles and the warm air from them spins the whirly-gig and the figures dance.” She smiled sadly. “My husband carved it himself, when Benjamin was born. I expect my father had input into the design. After all, what does an Englishman know about German toys?”

Inez nodded politely and moved on, feeling out of sorts and very... different. People were decorating, but it was too early. There were no poinsettias, no nativities. She was out of place.

“Inez, my dear, you look positively dour. I thought Josiah had promised his parishioners an _uplifting_ Christmas season,” Ezra greeted her as she reached the jail and prepared to cross the street toward the saloon. He must have spent the morning guarding the men who had tried to rob the stagecoach a week ago. Vin had been riding back to town after one of his times in the desert and had come upon the attempt.

The Seven looked after the town even when they were not _in_ town, it seemed. _They_ had found their place here.

“Inez?” Ezra’s voice was more worried now. “Are you all right?”

She shook off her melancholy. It was nearly Christmas after all. What was there to be gloomy about?

“I am sorry, Senor Ezra,” she said formally, shaking her head and smiling. “My mind was elsewhere.”

“Yes, well, why don’t we get our bodies elsewhere as well,” he said, a touch of concern still in his voice. “I believe the saloon calls?”

“The saloon always calls you, Senor,” she told him fondly. “I sometimes think it is the only call you hear, yes?”

He looked put upon. “It is the only call likely to make me money in this pitiful burg, Senorita.”

Inez grinned. As if she would believe that was all he cared about.

*****

On December ninth, Inez walked into the saloon and stopped dead.

There was a nativity on the shelf behind the bar. It was not elaborate—a handful of slab-shaped rocks created a cave that housed simple figures for Mary and Joseph. Outside was a turkey and a shepherd with a single sheep. It might have been bought in any little market shop in Guadalajara, but she’d bet it was made right here in Four Corners.

Who would make such a thing for her?

She looked up as Joe walked in from the back, carrying a box of bottles from the cold room downstairs. “Where did this come from?” she demanded.

Joe shrugged in that uninterested way of his. “I figured you brought it in. Ain’t got time for religion much, myself.”

Inez examined it carefully, looking for clues as to who might have put it there, but there were none. It was finely wrought, carefully made. Whoever did it had skill and caring. The Virgin and Joseph looked less polished than the rest, but it was a fine set. She smiled lightly at the taste of home and puzzled over the maker.

“Inez, if you have a pot of coffee on, I believe I’d marry you.”

She turned around at Buck Wilmington’s greeting and frowned as he sauntered in. “You will have to marry Joe, Senor,” she said saucily. “He is the one who made the coffee.”

Buck sighed. “What’s say I take a cup and skip the proposal, then.” He leaned against the bar as she ducked into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee, bringing the pot out with her.

“Right nice nativity you got there,” he said brightly. “One of the Mexican ladies where I grew up had one.” He looked at it minutely and shook his head. “Never did understand the turkey.”

Inez watched him suspiciously as he talked. Buck did not whittle, but Chris Larabee did. Buck could have gotten him to do the work in hopes of winning her over…

She almost said something before realizing that that would be exactly what he was looking for, an opening for him to woo her. She would realize he had done this for her and swoon in his arms. Pah! Instead she smiled. “It is a nice touch of Mexico here, I think.”

“Must be kind of hard on you, senorita,” Buck sympathized seriously. She must have sounded more wistful than she meant to. “Ain’t another Mexican family in the area.”

Inez sighed. That was the trouble with Buck Wilmington. He was genuinely caring and thoughtful, but as inconsistent and changeable as summer wind. He was not a man you should allow to capture your heart because he might simply forget he had it in hand and start looking for another to net when you weren’t looking.

“Christmas will be different this year, certainly, Senor Buck,” she allowed, nodding in gratitude for his observation. “But this is my home now. There are new traditions to make, no?”

Buck grinned in that lover’s way of his, confirming her earlier assessment. “I can think of all kinds of traditions I wouldn’t mind exposing you to.”

“You expose yourself enough, Senor,” she quipped back with a smile, walking away as a man sat down at the other end of the bar and waved her over.

“Not as much as I want to, Inez!” Buck called down to her.

 _Dios mio,_ she thought. _Men!_

****

December twelfth was a Sunday, and Inez returned to her room after church without opening the saloon. Joe could take care of it today. Today was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Inez was not so far from home that she would forsake that particular observance. She would kneel here before her shrine to the Virgin and finish the novena she had started nine days ago, and then she would worry about the outside, gringo world.

She reached into her skirt pocket to draw out her rosary and gasped as she looked up. Before her on the little dias, at the Virgin’s feet, lay a single, fresh red rose, like the ones the Virgin had led Juan Diego to 300 years ago.

Who…?

She was almost afraid to pick it up for fear it was an apparition, but she did, sniffing it delicately. Surely Buck would not know—or care—about the Virgin, or about Inez’s particular devotion to her. And breaking into her room was hardly the way to woo her—

A knock came at the door, startling her into dropping the rose.

“Who is there?” she asked, a little unsteadily, spooked by this unlikely occurrence. She picked up the bloom and placed it back on the altar.

“It’s Ezra,” the gambler replied, apology and annoyance warring in his voice. “I am sorry to disturb you, but Joe insisted I request your attendance to some mortal problem he’s in downstairs.”

Inez smiled and stood, opening the door. Ezra was there looking ready for his bed, and she remembered that she’d heard him finishing a game of poker as the day dawned this morning. “I will be down soon,” she promised.

Ezra snorted. “You may tell him that yourself, Senorita,” he replied with a yawn. “I am off to find my bed.” And with that, he strolled past her and into his own room.

Inez closed her door and headed down the stairs. Could Ezra have done this? He was well-travelled. They had spoken of his adventures in Mexico before, so he could be familiar with the traditions she missed so. And no lock was immune to him.

But why? He was sweet, but too self-absorbed to do something like this without hope of getting something back for his effort. And while she found him both handsome and attractive in many ways, he was never anything but polite and cordial, if sometimes playfully so. He had never shown an interest in her. Had he?

Oh, she did not like mysteries. They were too much trouble.

****

“The _noche buenas_ are a lovely addition to the holiday décor, Inez,” Josiah told her five days later.

She shook her head in confusion. “I have no poinsettias, Senor,” she told him. “I wish I did.” They were one thing the town’s many decorated houses and stores were sorely missing.

Josiah smiled and gestured to the front of the saloon. “Well you have them now. I assumed you ordered them.”

Inez walked out onto the boardwalk and, amazingly, there stood four clay pots, two on each side of the door, all with full, gorgeous poinsettias in them. The deep green leaves and bright red stars of flower at the top were just like the ones that ringed the fountain in the square by her papi’s home. She had spent many Christmases sitting by them and watching the pastorelas—plays that taught the lessons of Jesus and his birth.

It was as if she might look up any moment to see one of the men of the village pretending to fight off temptation on his way to visit the _Nino Dios_. She remembered the year the men used the ladies of the evening as temptation enough to delay the shepherds’ arrival at the manger. Her mama had been so scandalized!

“Well now, what is this vision of loveliness amid such loveliness?” Buck asked from far too close to her ear, his appearance at this moment nearly perfect. She couldn’t help it. She laughed.

“There’s the Christmas spirit!” Buck said, surprise in his voice as she looked up at him.

Inez didn’t care about their cat and mouse game, all of a sudden. She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Buck tried to reach his arms around her, but she was not that far gone and slipped out of his grip with a smile. “Not sure what you’re thanking me for, Inez,” he said, following her into the saloon. “But I’ll make sure to do it again if that’s the thanks I get.”

“She thinks you’re her Christmas angel,” Josiah said with a chuckle.

Inez swatted him. “For all I know _you_ could be him, Senor.” She shook a finger at him. “Those plants were not there this morning.”

“Hey, Inez!” JD Called as he walked in the door. “Those sure are pretty flowers out there. Where’d they come from?”

Inez looked at Josiah and grinned. “Perhaps a little angel sent them.”

****

As dusk fell, Inez truly did believe she would see children in the streets, dressed as the holy parents, begging for shelter in the night. But there was no posada that night, nor any other night leading up to Christmas Eve.

Still, the nativity sat on its shelf, candles lit on either side. Six days before Christmas, a too-large carving of a nest of nopal cactus appeared. Two days before, a finely sewn gossamer ghost, black with red eyes—Satan the tempter—found his way to the corner behind the little cave to flap lightly whenever the doors of the saloon flapped open. It was all like a miracle.

Perhaps the greatest miracle was that there had been not one brawl in the saloon since December began, so the nativity was never in danger of being damaged. The poinsettias flourished in the peaceful setting as well, and Inez smiled whenever she saw them, though she was no closer to figuring out who had done all of this.

Buck could not possibly have kept a secret this long before he made his move. If this had all been his doing, he would long since have whispered it in her ear in hopes of getting her in his bed or else tired of the game when she did not demand to know if it was him.

Ezra did not seem to enjoy Christmas very much at all, and she doubted he would be one to go to so much trouble to make someone else’s season enjoyable. Birthdays were one thing—he loved birthdays, and had made much of his own just the week before—but Christmas? No, she did not think he was her angel.

She smiled at the idea, dressing for midnight mass in the fine red skirt and colorful shirt she had purchased at the beginning of the season and spinning like a little girl to watch the material flow. Her Christmas Angel, Josiah had named her mysterious benefactor. It could be him, she supposed. He was a thoughtful man and her angel didn’t really need to have any thoughts of _amor_ , did he? She had spoken to him after that first Advent service of her longing for tradition…

It hardly mattered, she supposed, as she walked out of her room and headed for the stairs. She wanted to thank whoever had gone to so much trouble for her, but she knew that some people were simply content to give without giving themselves away.

The saloon was still open, of course, catering to those who did not believe or did not want to. Ezra was at his table with three ranch hands playing cards. He did not attend Josiah’s services and she was not surprised. His mother had surely never taken him to church as a boy—she was unsure Maude Standish had ever set foot in a church herself, in fact.

“Merry Christmas, Senor Ezra,” She greeted him all the same.

He smiled graciously in that way he had that spoke of hidden pains. “Feliz Navidad, Inez.”

She grinned, looking over at the nativity, wondering if a _Niño Dios_ would be there when she returned. It didn’t matter, did it? It would be a Merry Christmas any way she saw it.

With a wave to Joe at the bar and a tightening of her shawl around her shoulders, she stepped out into the night and stopped at the edge of the boardwalk.

“Madre de Dios,” she whispered reverently. At the base of the steps and all along the street leading from the far side of town to the church, were _farolitos_ , each little bag filled with light and showing her the way to Josiah’s service. The glow of them was already being used by other townspeople, some of whom nodded politely to her as they passed.

“Feliz Navidad, Miss Inez.”

Her head snapped up and her mouth opened in shock. Vin Tanner stood, his clothes cleaned and pressed, his hair soft in the light of the dozens of candles lighting the night, his face bashful as a schoolboy’s as he held out his arm for her.

“Senor Vin?” she asked, confused. She would not have thought… “You did all this?”

He smiled as she looped her arm in his and he led her on her way. “No ma’am, not just me. Josiah felt bad you weren’t enjoying the season, and Mrs. Potter got to thinking you might like some stuff that reminded you of home, seeing how she missed German things so much when she got here. Only managed the Mary and Joseph myself, but Chris is right good at whittling. Buck knows a girl in Mexico to get the poisenttias and Ezra’s got a cousin in California who grows roses and such, and well…” He grinned shyly. “Just is hard sometimes to feel like you got a place somewheres, when you miss what you had. Figured we could help with that.”

Inez ignored the tears that fell as she walked along, smiling across the street at Senor Larabee, who looked uncomfortable and sad, but was nonetheless there and tipped his hat from afar. She did not think he would go inside the church. Mrs. Potter—Greta—clasped her hand warmly at the church door and led her two quiet children in while Vin led Inez herself to a pew not too far from Josiah’s pulpit.

“My friends!” Josiah called, causing the murmurs to die down and the congregation to turn their attention to him. “Tonight, we celebrate Jesus. More than that, we celebrate belonging.” He glanced around at the church. “Jesus… didn’t belong anywhere. No home. No inn. Nobody wanted him. Except God.” He smiled right at her. “Because God wants everyone.”

Inez looked around, a warm feeling in her heart as a few others silently greeted her: JD, Buck, Miss Hettie the seamstress… So many people she had come to know in this town. She shook her head at her own foolishness and suddenly the European decorations seemed exotic and touching instead of cold and different. She had always fit in here. From the day she had slid behind the bar and shown Senor Ezra what she could do, she had become a part of this town.

It just took a church full of angelitos to show her.

********  
the end


End file.
